HEBRON — Elementary school staff and students will report to Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris on Monday as efforts continue to clean up an oil spill at Hebron Station School over the holiday break.
“The air-quality tests were not completed in time,” SAD 17 Superintendent Rick Colpitts said Friday afternoon.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection continued its work at Hebron Station School on Friday to identify and contain 1,900 gallons of heating oil that leaked out of the basement tank Dec. 24 as it was being filled.
Colpitts said the Maine Department of Health and Human Services will allow the school to use an 8,000-gallon holding tank for water until the school’s well water is declared safe for consumption. The water will be shipped into the school tanks from trucks that carry water certified by the state for human consumption.
Results of the tests on the school well will not be ready until Wednesday, Colpitts said. While officials do not believe the well water is contaminated, Colpitts said it can happen very quickly. The well will have to be isolated to ensure no one draws water from it, he said.
Students will spend at least Monday at the the high school in seven classrooms reserved for the approximately 135 students in kindergarten through grade six. If necessary, students will be there Tuesday, but that determination had not been made, Colpitts said.
Bus transportation will be as usual. Parents who drive their children to school should drop them off at Hebron Station School on Monday at their usual time. A bus will be waiting to take students to the high school.
Maintenance workers at Hebron Station School asked C.N. Brown on Dec. 23 to fill the 2,000-gallon tank because the fuel gauge showed it was running low, Colpitts said earlier this week.
The next day, an oil truck pumped in about 160 gallons before a whistle that indicates available space in the tank stopped blowing. Although the whistle stop usually means the tank is full, the fuel gauge continued to read empty, and the driver decided to continue pumping, Colpitts said.
As a result, oil leaked from an emergency relief valve, which is designed to prevent damage to the tank if it is overfilled. The self-contained concrete bunker under the school filled with about a foot of oil. School employees were told C.N. Brown would be back immediately to pump out the oil, Colpitts said.
But two days later, on Dec. 27, a DEP team was called to the school after school officials found the room empty but suspected the oil had leaked out of the containment room.
While no oil was found in the four test holes drilled Thursday on the perimeter of the property, a small amount was discharged through “weeping holes” in a perimeter pipe and some oil was found in nearby wetlands. That oil was mopped up with no discernible damage, Colpitts said.
DEP officials returned to the school Friday to begin drilling in a confined area in the basement to try to locate the leaked oil.
Colpitts said Friday evening that “significant” amounts of oil have been found under the slab where the oil tank sits. DEP workers were engineering ways to remove that oil, he said.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
Similar oil spill costs SAD 9 $28,000
FARMINGTON — In 2011, a similar accident at Mt. Blue Middle School cost the SAD 9 school district about $28,000.
The spill happened when a C.N. Brown oil truck was pumping 1,500 gallons into a delivery pipe and oil began to rush out of an overflow pipe. The electric alarm, installed as a warning mechanism, never sounded, school officials said at the time.
To avoid heavy fumes from the spill, about 350 students and staff were evacuated to a sports field behind the school after the midday accident.
David Leavitt, director of student services, said Friday the school district was fortunate that the spill occurred where it did.
“We were really lucky, Leavitt said. “A lot of oil went into the drainage system, and we could absorb that.”
The drainage system was along the side of the building and took most of the lost oil. Because it could be absorbed in the system, it never reached the nearby brook, he said.
Additionally, the school was on town water, so tainted water was not a concern as it is at Hebron Station School, which is served by well water.
At the time, Glen Wall of the Department of Environmental Protection told the Sun Journal that the school’s oil delivery system was somewhat odd because the fuel tank was filled from the front of the school, but the tank and vent were in the back. The oil came out the vent, sprayed the side of the building, lawn and crushed rock, he said. Cleanup efforts involved removal of some soil and crushed rocks.
In the end, SAD 9 was responsible for the cleanup tab because a faulty gauge, owned by the school district, was to blame, Leavitt said.
There has been no determination of responsibility nor cost figures for the cleanup at the Hebron Station School site.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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